Ups & Downs Support Group: March 2014

Hello all! Sorry I didn't have time to write the past couple days. I am slowly getting back on board, but something interesting came up this morning. I just had annual routine bloodwork done for the medication I am on, and my psychiatrist's office called and said that my thyroid levels were low. I haven't heard from my primary doc (who took the blood work) yet, so I'm not sure how low my levels were, but I am hoping that maybe that is why I've only gained and had such an incredibly hard time losing weight. Not that I want to take yet another med, but maybe my thyroid has been the culprit. I will keep you posted.

ohiofreespirit: Happy to hear that you are taking one day at a time and hanging in there. Hope you follow through on buying a bicycle and getting outside. That would definitely help your mood! Our Ohio weather is still crazy, but hopefully we will have more warm days than cold soon. I can certainly relate to eating too much. I have had a HUGE appetite lately. Trying to eat only healthy things or resist eating extra stuff in that case is a real challenge.

Fi: I like your idea of a wall calendar with highlights, but I am afraid that I would be too hard on myself and not award myself enough highlighted days. I am so hard on myself that when I eat any extras, even if healthy or somewhat healthy, I consider it a downer day. I know, I know..... not good! I will work on positive feedback only. That, too, is difficult for me. But I can do it!!! Your collage with the fish is hilarious! Is that the real YOU in the pictures? I am also bipolar, but have only had one serious manic episode. Other than that, my mania typically manifests itself through irritability. Sorry you had that manic experience. Glad to hear that you are feeling better already, though! Hang in there and keep on posting! I love hearing from you.

1life2liv: to our group! So happy you found us! It is good that you finally found the meds that work for you, but ~ yes ~ I know all too well that it often comes at a weight gain cost. Same here! My depression is well under control, but it is difficult now to not be depressed about my weight. I am at my all-time high and my weight just seems to creep up and never go down, despite my efforts for awhile now. I recently lost 6 pounds on a new diet, which was the first weight I have been able to lose in YEARS, but I think I gained most or all of it back already. I will NOT give up on myself, though. I just HAVE to keep trying! Your drug and alcohol addiction major sounds so interesting and admirable, especially since you have personal experience with it. We have a lot of addiction in our extended family, so I am really interested in the subject, too. We need more good people in that field..... like YOU! How did your appointment with the nutritionist go? I might end up working with one, too, because I am in the same boat ~ really weight loss resistant. Hey, take that 8 pound loss and BE PROUD of it!!! You worked hard for that and your efforts will continue to pay off if you keep up the good work. You are probably gaining muscle, too, which weighs more than fat, as you probably know. Just don't give up on yourself. You deserve to be happy and healthy, too!!! Good for you for getting help with cleaning your house. It is OKAY to ask for help, especially when working as hard as you are. I say GO FOR IT!!!

Holly: Please don't berate yourself for feeling fat at 160! That was not my intent at all. All of our various weights are personal and relative to our own experience. I would just LOVE to be back DOWN to 160 right now is all I was sayin'! I dream of the day............ and I will get there....... eventually!!! The current book I am reading is called The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. I haven't even read enough yet to recommend it or not. I go in spurts (of reading and non-reading) with my books. I have a hard time retaining what I read. I just hope to get ONE good piece of advice out of each self-help book that I read. I will let you know if it's worth the read. Thank you so much for sending me all of the !!! I sooooooo need it! Please keep it comin'!!! OMGosh, your boss is such a royal jerk!!! I can't believe he told personal information about you to a customer.......... and for that customer to then lay his filthy hands on you is just out of line!!!!!!!! I am so happy to hear that you let your boss have it, even if he still doesn't get it. I don't blame you for feeling outraged ~ at both your boss and the customer!!! You do NOT deserve that kind of treatment!!! BTW, thank you so much for welcoming the new chicks to our group in my absence. I was so happy to see that you did that!

Semperfiddle: to our group! I am so very sorry to hear about the drowning death of your teenage son. I lost a newborn twin son to extreme prematurity 18 years ago, so I can somewhat relate to the intense heartbreak of the death of a child. I cannot imagine having him for years and then losing him, though! Understandably, you were devastated. I applaud you for wanting to finally move on and put the weight gain from that time behind you. That is how I feel with my weight gain after the death of my son and the birth (3 years later) of my handicapped daughter. I feel like I am finally getting my life back in order after a series of traumatic events back then, but the weight remains. I really want to lose the weight and move on. It is difficult for me, but I know it HAS to be possible, so I won't give up on myself, despite being very weight loss resistant due to several factors, including the meds I'm on and now, possibly a low thyroid problem (just discovered). CONGRATULATIONS on your 5 pound weight loss!!! Keep it rollin'!!! Good luck on beginning to exercise. That will definitely help speed up your weight loss. YOU CAN DO IT!!! Sending you a big hug for all you've been through! So happy that you posted!

Chelsea: Thanks for asking about me. I appreciate your concern. I am doing better, but really frustrated with my weight. I feel so incredibly fat most of the time and I am sick of feeling that way. I will assume you read the above info about my potential thyroid problem and the name of the willpower book I am reading. Don't want to repeat too much and bore all of you to death. It is so great to hear from you! So sorry that you feel conflicted and depressed and trapped in your job. Vent all you want here. We care about you and want you to be happy!!! Please hang in there and do your best to take care of yourself in the meantime!

Well, I'm so discouraged I can hardly see straight. I only weigh myself once a month, and today was my weigh-in. The scale put me up 2 pounds since last monthwhich is basically flatline. I know there are about 17 reasons why I might have hit a plateau, which include chronic undereating, lousy sleep, inconsistency about doing my leg exercises, no walking (because of snow!), lots of stress, not drinking enough water, blah blah blah. Obviously my metabolism slowed way down, and being nearly 60 doesn't help: it's SO much harder to lose weight now than during my 30s, it isn't even funny.

But still... I was consistently eating a very low-carb diet all month long. And low-carb works for me. It's how I've lost the 67 pounds so far. I only had one sugary treat during the whole month, which was a large cookie about a week ago. Obviously having one treat a month doesn't constitute cheating. Will power about eating right is not my problem.

I don't need advice about what to do differently. I know all the ways in which I need to tune up my act, and I know how to jumpstart my metabolism. I just need sympathy for being really discouraged, angry even. I'm glad I only weigh myself once a month, because f**ked-up mood from today's weigh-in cost me a whole day I really needed to devote to collage. I'm behind schedule on three different projectsyuck. I just hope I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight, and wake up tomorrow ready for a re-set. And thank God it's spring!

Thanks to all of y'all who had nice things to say about my "fish faces" collage. No, Kathleen, the woman making the faces is not me.

__________________

Current mini-goal: Get down to 260
Pounds to go: 15
Mini-goal 1: 30 days binge-free > done 12/21/13 & binge-free now
Mini-goal 2: Get down to 280 > done 5/22/14

Fi: No advice here; just sympathy because I can so relate to trying very hard and not making progress. The scale only seems to creep UP for me. It is SOOOOOOOOO discouraging!!!!! Sorry that your hard work eating low-carb didn't pay off on the scale. I hope you are indeed resetting yourself today and putting that weigh-in behind you. Today is a new day and I KNOW you can do this!!! Hang in there, my friend!

Kathleen - Oh gosh..I hope you don't have to take another medication also, BUT if your thyroid is the culprit, then how great would it be to get that under control and maybe it will stop messing with your hard work! And you need never apologize for not writing every few days, as your posts are so personal and caring

Fi - all sympathy for that wretched scale not reflecting a month of very low carb! I would be hoppin' mad...ugh. We are all rooting for you and maybe that dopey gain will whoosh away, and take a couple more pounds with it! And it is really kewl that one of your fellow artists was so taken with your Fish Faces that he took the time to animate it.

Ohio, I hope you can keep up with the homework, I admire you so much for being in school

Chelsea - so sorry you're feeling trapped and depressed. And oh boy how that can mess with our eating. Yes we can only hope our partners don't want to strangle us for our venting, lol. "Mind over mass"...that's good! we just have to try to overcome our negative self-images, somehow.

THANKyou for everyone's indignation at my recent work troubles...the 'hand-sy' customer came in yesterday, entered the deli work area as usual, and started to talk about what a great day of skiing it was..I approached him right away and quietly yet intently said..'what you did the other day was So out of line..you NEVER put your hands on anyone again like that!' and he says...all shocked..'did I hurt you?' me - "no..it is assault..if we were in a crowd I would have punched you'... He tries to look sincere and starts to apologize, I just stare at him, and do not accept the apology. I then interrupt and said "I'm working" and went back to my sandwich station.

So my awful boss says nothing about this, we just keep assembling sandwiches (it was super busy) and my hands were shaking..i was so angry that boss says nothing about this, so i let the eff bomb drop on him, and he starts throwing things around, it was not a happy time, lol.

He did follow the hand-sy customer outside and I do not know what was said. If my boss had ANY sense he would have told me that he addressed the situation , but if i had a million dollars, I would bet that my boss dissed me for being overreactive.

Today I have to ask boss what was said. Because I have a preliminary investigative questionnaire for the State's Attny' office all filled out and just have to hit 'send' .

Thanks so much for the sympathy for my weight plateau! I didn't feel ready for a re-set yesterday because I had a crappy day due to one of those deadly "mixed" episodes that many bipolars know aboutwhen you have depression pain at the same time as feeling really hyper & wired-up. It lasted for several hours, I took a couple of different meds to try to stop it, but finally what helped was having a half-cup of muesli with cream. Yes, friends, it's my "magic muesli" again: this is the second time it's happened that I got to feeling really out of sorts, bipolar-wise, while following a very low-carb diet. After eating that muesli, I felt so much more like myself, it was amazing.

Why muesli? Well, it just happens that Familia brand muesli is something both Bob and I like, so it's in the house all the time, and it's the healthiest way on hand for me to get a quick slug of carbos. So today I went out and bought a box of my own, because I prefer the sugar-free kind, whereas Bob's has sugar in it. I'm going back to having a half-cup serving a day, with a bit of cream (because cream has almost no carbs, and I love it). That should also have the effect of adding some much-needed calories back into my diet. I think I can get away with skipping the muesli, though, on the days when I do intermittent fasting.

As for exercise, it's a gorgeous day today in the DC areaa bit nippy, but the redbuds and forsythia are in bloom all over my neighborhoodso I hope I can get myself out the door for a walk. No matter what, I will do my leg exercises tonight to the rock-n-roll radio show (no commercials!) I'm into. And I've been drinking more water, as promised.

Sorry I don't have time for personal comments today: I lost most of another day yesterday to screwed-up mood, so I absolutely have to take advantage of the good mood I'm in now to work on art projects that are behind schedule.

__________________

Current mini-goal: Get down to 260
Pounds to go: 15
Mini-goal 1: 30 days binge-free > done 12/21/13 & binge-free now
Mini-goal 2: Get down to 280 > done 5/22/14

Semperfiddle— Congrats on your 2 pounds down, and way to go on the walking! You have to make a certain number of postings over a certain number of days before you can put your ticker in your signature. I think the number is 25, but I'm not sure: it could be 20. At any rate, just keep posting every day, in any thread, and you'll get there. Once you do, you click on "User CP" in the upper lefthand corner, and then on "Edit Signature" and you'll be able to add your ticker. They have that rule because the site was having trouble with spammers. Oh, and by the way, I'm a writer, too: I haven't published anything for several years because I got into making collage, but I used to write essays, book reviews, and a column, and I have a half-finished rough draft of an autobiographical novel—actually a memoir with the names and other details changed a bit. I'm strictly a nonfiction writer—no fiction. Have fun with your workshop!

__________________

Current mini-goal: Get down to 260
Pounds to go: 15
Mini-goal 1: 30 days binge-free > done 12/21/13 & binge-free now
Mini-goal 2: Get down to 280 > done 5/22/14

Cool Fiona, I'm strictly a non-fiction writer myself, unless you count the one book of fiction I wrote but never published. I'd like to do a memoir but I have a hard time delving into the past; it's why I have depression now! (my childhood experiences, that is)

I had a good day today...stuck to my calorie goal even though I splurged on half a Big Mac at dinner.

Semplefiddle, what an accomplishment, writing a book! but I'm sorry that the memoir would be hard for you due to childhood experiences.

Fi, Oh my gosh, forsythia blooming?? how nice that must be! I don't miss much of New Jersey, where I grew up, except for the memory of actual hedges of forsythia! we won't get blooming stuff here til May.

Hello Support Buddies! Well, after 2 days of waiting to hear back from the doctor, I finally found out today that my doctor said my bloodwork "looks perfect." I asked about my thyroid levels, since my psychiatrist had called to say they came back low. The nurse said, "Well, your T3 and T4 levels WERE low, but your TSH level was normal," so basically he doesn't want to do anything but follow up with me in a few months. I'm kind of bummed because I thought maybe some of my extreme weight loss resistance might be due to a low thyroid, which could be treated. So I guess I am just stuck with this weight until I can somehow manage to lose it. I had a crappy day today for several reasons and chose to eat my comfort food ~ McDonald's fries............ along with a quarter pounder without cheese. I know that it is counterproductive to losing weight, but something just had to give today. I was under so much stress that I was thinking, "How the h*ll am I supposed to ALSO eat right and exercise in this situation?!? The h*ll with eating right. I WANT McDonald's fries!!!" And I gave in..... So today was NOT a good eating day. I also have not exercised to this point..... and it is getting late in the day. I will aim to make tomorrow a MUCH better day overall. I am overwhelmed with a lot of things right now, so I really need to make a list of all that is on my mind and sort things out. I also haven't journaled in ages. That would help, I am sure.

ohiofreespirit: Hope you are keeping up with your homework. Uggggh, the thought of it freaks me out! I would NOT be a good student at this point in my life! I, too, admire you for what you are doing. Keep on trying on those tests. YOU CAN DO IT!!! I am also waiting on the warm spring weather here in Ohio!!! It snowed here today!

Holly: Good for you for setting that hand-sy customer straight!!! Did you ever find out what your JOAB (Jerk-of-a-Boss ) said to him???

Fi: Sorry you had a crappy day the other day. Muesli seems to be the magic potion for you! Glad that you are going to add it back into your diet on a regular basis. Hope you have had the chance to take a walk outdoors, do your leg exercises, and work on some of your art projects!

Semperfiddle: Congratulations on losing 2 pounds!!! Good for you for doing a lot of walking over the weekend. That is cool that you and Fiona have non-fiction writing in common! Hope you enjoy your writer's workshop. Glad that you have continued to post!

Thanks for the congratulations, IBelieveInMe! Every pound that comes of is a major victory for each of us. And don't beat yourself up about the McDonald's ...just get back on the wagon and go, go, go.

It snowed here yesterday too, quite a bit, but the sun is out and shining so I feel encouraged. Overcast days can be hard on me... Tomorrow I have PTSD support group and an appt with my therapist, and then meet in the evening with three other writer's for our monthly writer's group meeting. Full day and I'm looking forward to it.

I am up to my eyeballs in homework but I am doing ok. I have a low A in my class. I will be happy if I wind up with a B. I made out my schedule for the next year, it is exciting to see it written down. Next session, I am taking a math class in person at DeVry. Has anyone ever heard of DeVry University?

The weather here in Ohio is chilly today. I am anxious for spring to get here. Perhaps April will bring warm weather?????

Semperfiddle, congrats on the weight loss.

IBelieve, I know what it's like to be stuck with your weight. I kind of am too and it's rough to be stuck with your weight.

I will check back in in a couple of days to read up on what is going on with all you wonderful ladies.

OMG!!!! so I have not checked in in a few days and wow, lots to read. I don't even know where to start.

first off I had my appointment with the nutritionist and she put me basically on the mediterranian (sp) diet. Has anyone heard of it or have and suggestions... im all ears. or eyes (; also she prescribed me a medication to curb my appetite and help with obsessive food thoughts. Few things about the pill. first it gives me a ton of energy (I love that!!) Second in makes my mouth very dry, and last it really, really curbs my appetite. this leads me to a question.... is it bad if you're not getting enough calories? I bring this up because I do the my fitness pal and ive been averaging only 700-900 calories per day and she set my target at 1400-1600. im just not hungry and I get full incredibly fast. I feel like ive has weight loss surgery. I'm not sure if I should take this as a good thing or a bad thing... I'll take all the advice I can get.

on an end note, now I know to check in more regularly so I can keep up with the latest drama and gossip (: but for now, its 115am and alarm goes off at 5am so im going to be selfish and make my post tonight all about me.

I will say good luck to everyone. thank you to all who have reached out!!!!! hang in there and xoxoxox